Tag Archives: Ayano Sugiura

What makes a moe anime good for me is when it parodies the mundaneness of life in familiar ways that are funny, cute and/or insightful. Yuru Yuri doesn’t do that. It’s just a bit too imaginative with its themes and doesn’t mesh with reality very much. While that’s not really a true complaint per se, it detracts from the viewers’ ability to relate to it. I don’t know that a second season of Yuru Yuri was really necessary in the grand scheme of things. None of the characters really grow up in any way and tend to stick to what they know best and unfortunately what they know best is being just above average.

The biggest difference I can see between season one and two of Yuru Yuri is a massive growth in arrogance regarding its own worth. I suppose you could write that off as an attempt to be satirical, but I just don’t get how it’s any funnier than if it had just gone and explored things the way it always had done without this unnecessary shift in tone. Other moe anime like Squid Girl have a steady confidence that doesn’t mess around with anything that already works. The series’ episodic nature ought to keep things accessible to newcomers, but established fans of the first season probably won’t be wowed by the sameness of Yuru Yuri 2.

So despite the fact that it’s really neither good nor bad, what it all comes down to is that Yuru Yuri is a comedy series that really isn’t all that funny. Its moments of brilliance are less frequent than those of Acchi Kocchi and shine less brightly than A-Channel. If you’re hungry for moe, you can do much worse, but I’m currently withholding my seal of approval.

The unstoppable, capricious leader, Kyouko. The level-headed sidekick who vainly attempts to keep her in line, Yui. Their childhood friend and the girl everyone forgets about, Akari. And a new addition to the group, the hot and cold, pink twin-tailed Chinatsu. Together these four members of the Amusement Club have taken over the former Tea Club’s room and turned it into a gathering place where they can goof around and just have fun. Opposing their happy days are two members of the student council. The strict tsundere Ayano and her calm, yuri sidekick, Chitose. But despite their attempts to crash the Amusement Club’s party, more often than not they just end up getting sucked into the high-tempo pull of Kyouko’s personality to be whisked off on another wild ride.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting Yuru Yuri to be as clever as it turned out to be when I first started watching it. With an all-female cast as is typical of moe anime, you’re not going to be seeing any romance from this series. However, as type-cast as some of the characters are, they do occasionally get to show a few more facets of their personalities in delightfully comedic ways. That being said, their depth is quite shallow when compared to the growth and development of the characters of A-Channel, another recent moe anime. The music is delightfully cheerful, the tropes pleasingly nontypical and it adds up to an anime that entertains.